Few have so completely remade themselves as Markham, Ontario one-time proprietary 16-bit minicomputer builder Geac Computer Corp. Via library automation systems and acquisition it is now a $205m software major, and yesterday it agreed to pay $150m cash and an 18-month term note for $41.25m for a firm that has seen much better days, Dun & Bradstreet Software, Westport, Connecticut. Parent company Dun and Bradstreet Corp put the Software arm up for sale at the beginning of the year, and looked in June to be finally rid of it, having agreed to let in go in a buyout financed by Bain Capital Inc (CI No 2,943). But the deal fell through, allowing Geac, a firm which has acquired over 30 companies in different markets over the last three years, to step in. Geac specializes in Unix and client/server applications software for vertical markets. Dun & Bradstreet Software, once a market leader in business applications, declined due to a mis-managed attempt to migrate its user base from mainframes to client/server. After three years of selling its SmartStream client/server product, some 60% of its customers are still running on mainframes. The company later developed a co-existence strategy encompassing its older Millennium and Expert users. SmartStream covers manufacturing, financial distribution, decision support and human resources offerings. Meanwhile, Dun and Bradstreet Corp is preparing to split itself into three publicly traded companies on November 1st: Cognizant Corp for high growth information markets; the new Dun and Bradstreet for financial information services; and AC Nielsen for market research.
